Political Desires

My trans brothers deserve better than sex in a frame that undermines their identities. This doesn’t mean queer cis women and gender non-conforming female assigned folks can’t fuck trans men, but then they owe it to these guys to reframe their sexuality in a way that’s not undermining – to recognize that they sleep with men, and to question why they’re OK with sleeping with trans men and not cis men. I just don’t think it’s OK to process your sexual trauma in a delegitimizing way through the bodies of folks who’ve often faced tons of trauma at the intersection of gender and sexuality.

The author, Jos Truitt, is getting a certain amount of heat for implying, even as an ally, that queer women should ever have to justify their decision not to sleep with cis men. For one thing, many queer women who find themselves in sexual relationships with trans men were originally in, well, queer relationships with that individual pre-transition, and the decision to stay involved with their now male partner shouldn’t necessarily cause them to question their identity as lesbians. Or should it?